August 12, 2006

Last week’s Apple WorldWide Developer Conference (WWDC) was light on news pertaining to Microsoft aside from the usual Apple snarking about Vista. There’s nothing more likely than that to excite geeky passions and while it’s not out of place at an event dedicated to rallying the developer troops, perhaps more relevant were the following:

“Tens of millions of lines of code have been 100 percent transitioned to Xcode on the road to a Universal version of Office for Mac. The Mac BU also will provide free, downloadable converters to allow users of current versions of Office for Mac to read the new Microsoft Office Open XML formats following the availability of Office for Windows,” wrote a Microsoft spokesperson.

Microsoft Messenger for Mac 6.0, a new version of Microsoft’s instant messaging application, is coming “later this year,” according to the company. It will include features such as federation with Yahoo! Messenger, customized emoticons and spell check. Users will also be able to display personal messages or what song’s playing in iTunes.

Microsoft is also developing a new version of its Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) client software, which enables Mac users to access Windows PCs on their network. “The next version of RDC will be released as a fully supported free product and details on this release will be shared closer to launch,” stated Microsoft.

What has been a foregone conclusion for many Mac users has finally been confirmed: Microsoft’s Virtual PC is dead. In a statement provided to BetaNews Monday, the company said its Macintosh Business Unit has decided not to go forward with a version of the software native to the Intel platform.

“Developing a high-quality virtualization solution, such as Virtual PC, for the Intel-based Mac is similar to creating a version 1.0 release due to how closely the product integrates with Mac hardware,” a Microsoft spokesperson said.

She added that the need for virtualization should be satisfied through alternatives provided by Apple and others.